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Can Nokia take on the dual-SIM market?

So Nokia finally released their first dual-SIM phone in the Philippines, the Nokia C1-00. It’s a pretty basic phone but one that challenges the strong presence of local dual-SIM phone brands in the country.

There are at least 3 local phone brands that are competing in the dual-SIM and triple-SIM market — Cherry Mobile, Torque and MyPhone. That does not include the SG-based Verzio that came into the Philippines back in 2007.

Nokia C1-00 owners will also benefit from a large phonebook that can store up to 500 entries, a multi-phonebook for up to 5 users, a large memory enough to store 250 messages, standby battery time of up to six weeks with up to 13 hours talk time, the longest ever for a Nokia mobile phone.

For good measure, Nokia added a Flashlight feature and built-in FM radio tuner.

In my previous interview with Nokia executives in SG a few months back, they claim it’s not too late to enter the dual-SIM market. And while the target market does not really draw that much margins, the only approach is to generate tons of sales of these cheap phones.

I read somewhere (a year ago) that Torque was selling over 20,000 units a month while another source tells me Cherry Mobile sells close to 100,00 units per month. If you bring in the numbers from MyPhone and the other China-phones, that’s a huge volume.

Nokia has the trusted brand, network and resources to penetrate this market. The question is, will they also dominate it the same way they dominated the other segments of the mobile market? Only time will tell.

The Nokia C1-00 has a suggested retail price of Php2,070 and is available in red or medium blue at all Nokia Stores and authorized distributors nationwide.

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Avatar for Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

32 Responses

  1. Avatar for Lzly Lzly says:

    hi.. does any1 know if c2 is already out of the market? and how much does it cost??? im pretty intrested.. tenx!

  2. Avatar for netbooksearcher netbooksearcher says:

    Yeah, kailan ba lalabas ang Nokia C2-00? Yun na lang ang bibilhin ko.

  3. Avatar for Andrew John P. Young Andrew John P. Young says:

    well, too little too late… but it sure looks like a good sturdy phone

  4. Avatar for Jes Jes says:

    Better wait for the C2-00. Kelan kaya labas at magkano?

  5. Avatar for MIke MIke says:

    its not dual standy sand to say that.

  6. Avatar for Guy Radaza Guy Radaza says:

    pretty kewl and cheap!

  7. Avatar for Ton Ton says:

    Shouldn’t they be worried instead with the market that once upon a pre-blackberry time almost exclusively used Communicators?

  8. Avatar for yizhan yizhan says:

    Its about time that NOKIA make move.. hopefully ma-release young dual standby.

  9. Avatar for Pedro Pedro says:

    i’ll just wait for the dual stand-by(NOKIA)… thanks for the tips… :p

  10. Avatar for Jamby Jamby says:

    Is this Dual Active Standby also Sir Abe??

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